Reh Peak

July 15, 2024 via North Ridge 5.2

I have been wanting to check out the Anderson River Valley for years after seeing the striking photo of Steinbock’s NE Buttress. Starting from the east side of the valley would give me a great view of this face as well as Springbock Arete up Les Cornes. The 5.2 “knife edge” description of the North Ridge of Reh Peak caught my attention, so I decided to mission out there as a solo adventure. Initially the plan was to link up more peaks and bivy out there, but the dirty 5th class friction slab up Gemse (and likely other peaks) felt terrible to solo, so I ended up pulling the plug after Reh. Still had an amazing solo day out, and I will definitely return with a belay at some point.

The drive up the Anderson Mainline the night before was pretty straightforward. the washouts weren’t very deep and the road was overall in pretty good shape until the big washout before the bridge. After cowboy camping next to the Land Rover, I started off the next day shortly after 5am, trying to take advantage of cooler temps in the morning for the approach. The day started off with two river crossings right off the bat. Two very well-placed logs kept my feet dry. After this the road was pretty fast travel through meadow like grasses and flowers. After about 5.5km I turned off onto a smaller road that was much more overgrown and was a classic coastal alder bash. I popped out to another easy river crossing before the road continued on the far side. My loud bush thrashing clearly spooked the Moose at the river and I just caught a glimpse of it before it rushed off ahead of me. I followed the road until I was roughly in line with the North Ridge of Reh Peak. It took me about 3 hours to this point. From here I started bushwhacking fall line up through the forest.

Travel through the dense recovering forest was slow going. There was many large boulder and blank mossy slabs to work around. Soon though I popped out above the trees and had a great view of the sheer North Face of Gemse. The North Ridge of Reh up ahead looked fairly clean and exposed.

I was hoping for an exposed au cheval along the ridge. But the knife edge ended up being a little blunt and I ended up bear crawling most of it. Still very fun scrambling though! There are quite limited options for protection along this ridge if you wanted to pitch it out. The first step in the ridge I bypassed climbers right along a thin dirty ledge. There was another final step up a rotten gulley just before the summit. Not fancying the crumbling granite, I looked around until I found an easy bypass walking along an exposed ledge far to the climbers left. Overall the 5.2 grade felt very reasonable, and probably climbs easier than a number of old school “4th class” routes.

After walking down the very easy south ridge of Reh I headed over to Gemse. Initially I wanted to link up more of the peaks. Heading up Gemse I was met with dirty/crumbly 5th class friction slab cruxes and I decided that it would be better to return with a belay and I bailed back towards the Col. I headed down the col and ended up making one 10m rappel off a tree to skip a short section of down climbing.

After descending from the col, I relaxed in a small meadow for the better part of an hour. Just simply enjoying having this vast and beautiful place all to myself. Then I traversed along slabs under Gemse’s North Face. Here the slabs were clean and had been polished by regular glide avalanches. I traversed under the lower north ridge of Gemse until I found a short 4th class break to gain the ridge top. Here I was welcomed with stunning views of Steinbock Peak, Ibex Peak, and Les Cornes. I hiked down the ridge line with fantastic 360-degree views.

Below the treeline the ridge steepened again. I ended up making two short rappels over slippery mossy slabs rather than faffing with a bunch of route finding. Eventually I found my way back to the overgrown road, and I started swimming my way back through the alders.

After another leisurely break cooling off in the river. I headed back out through the endless wildflowers on the old logging road. Here I also found some of the sweetest wild strawberries I have ever tasted, quite the treat after a long day. Overall it took me about 11.5 hours car to car at a not particularly rushed pace. In the end I was happy I brought a 30m rope and gear to rappel.